Cool

Perhaps it's been around for a while and I've just missed it, but meet ScotusWiki. Yes, it's a Supreme Court wiki...and it's pretty cool.

Maybe this just says something about me.

The DC Gun Ban Case

Among the most anxiously-awaited decisions of the Supreme Court this term is that in Washington DC v. Heller, a challenge to the constitutionality of the district's handgun ban. Given that I enjoy, and have some understanding of, con law, but am no expert, I'll shy away from analysis and mostly just go link happy. The usually far-left Lawrence Tribe has a more nuanced view of the Second Amendment, and writing in the Journal a few days ago, advocates the most narrow possible ruling.

The peerless folks over at SCOTUSBlog penned a rather lengthy dissertation on the meaning of the right of self defense, but it's worthwhile and touches on the apparent feelings of many of the justices. My reading of what they have to say is that if we see a narrow, vintage Roberts ruling here, it may be as strong as 6-3 in favor; such a narrow ruling might win over both Kennedy and Breyer. Of course I also looking forward to the dissents of the other three...

They've also pulled together links to a bunch of coverage both in the media and the legal world in the wake of the arguments in two posts; one is just straight coverage, while the other includes links to the audio files of the hearings.

One blogger they link to echoes my predicted decision above, but takes a more nuanced approach with Breyer writing a separate concurrence in part and dissent in part (have your cake and eat it too while wearing a long black robe!) in which Ginsburg might join; such a 5-2-2 split would leave Stevens and Souter dissenting, and depending on what Breyer says, could be interpreted as a victory for 2nd Amendment activists.

It's the First Monday in October

And that means the Supreme Court is back in session! The Las Vegas Review-Journal gives a good roundup of the major cases the court will be hearing in the near future (as well as one they'll likely hear):

The most high-profile case on the court's calendar is probably one involving Guantanamo detainees. Lawyers for some of those held at the Cuban base will maintain that a U.S. law allowing the indefinite imprisonment of terror suspects should not prevent challenges in U.S. courts to their confinement.

The Bush administration argues that Guantanamo prisoners are treated fairly.

"This is the most generous set of procedures ever afforded to a nation's military adversaries in the history of the world. They are, however, far short of what would be afforded a U.S. citizen caught up in the civilian justice system," said Brad Berenson, who served under Mr. Bush in the White House counsel's office.

We see little danger, however, that terror suspects who truly threaten the United States would be released if they were allowed to avail themselves of U.S. jurisprudence.

Other major cases include:

• Voter ID: Democrats want the court to toss out state laws that require voters to identify themselves at the polls. Oh, the humanity! Maintaining the integrity of the electoral process is an important matter. The identification requirement is a minimal burden that the justices should uphold.

• Lethal injection: This will be an interesting case. Death penalty opponents maintain that this method of execution violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. OK. But is there any means of execution that would be acceptable to them? Probably not. Liberal court observers who complain about this panel's lack of respect for precedent may find themselves in a bit of a pickle, here, given justices have ruled repeatedly over the years that the death penalty itself is not inherently "cruel and unusual."

• Crack cocaine: Thanks to U.S. sentencing guidelines, sellers of crack cocaine -- who often happen to be black -- are subject to more stringent criminal penalties in the federal system than sellers of powder cocaine -- who often happen to be white. The issue before the court is whether a federal judge has the discretion to impose a more lenient sentence on those who sell crack. In fact, many of these hard and fast sentencing mandates go too far in taking away the ability of judges to analyze an individual case and act appropriately. Let's hope the justices agree.

• Government bonds: In this case out of Kentucky, the justices must decide whether a state can treat interest income from municipal bonds differently if they are from out of state rather than from in state. If the court upholds a ruling that the practice is unconstitutional it will have major implications for investors

• Child porn: Is it a crime to promote child pornography by talking about it even if you don't possess it? That's what the justices must determine in a case involving a man whose conviction was overturned after an appeals court ruled that a federal law criminalizing such activity is unconstitutional. The prohibition against actually possessing such images is not at issue.

A case not yet on the docket involves Washington, D.C.'s, strict gun ban. Many people expect the justices to soon accept the matter, in which an appeals court struck down the ban as an affront to the Second Amendment.

If so, it will likely become the most watched matter on the docket -- and present the justices with the opportunity to reaffirm that the Second Amendment gives individual Americans the right to keep and bear arms.

Supreme Court: Who Next?

As I alluded to in my previous post, regardless of the next President's political affiliation (save for the slim possibility of a Bloomberg victory), he or she will face a nasty fight to confirm any Supreme Court nominee. This is almost purely the product of abominable Democratic opposition to Supreme Court nominees in the past (Bork, anyone?); it's enlightening to compare the confirmation votes for, say Ginsburg, compared to say, Alito (the former passed almost without opposition, the latter was nearly party-line).

But who will the next nominee be? Tom Goldstein over at SCOTUSblog has given it some consideration; he's come up with two very worthwhile posts (original and follow-up) on potential Democratic picks, and one on those a Republican might tap. Especially noteworthy in the first of the three is his explanation of the logic underlying any nominee. Much of this isn't new, but making age a serious consideration is; no doubt this partially informed the relatively youthful nominations of Alito and Roberts (and serves to support Goldstein's suggestion that Republicans understand and take more seriously the importance of judicial nominees). As the time between vacancies increases, no doubt everyone will be looking to get more miles out of their picks. But take time to read the bios and the comments if you're interested in this stuff, Sb attracts a well-informed crowd of readers and so their reactions have some credibility.

For better or worse, Goldstein also notes that many of the brightest minds (often in the academe) haven't got a shot of nomination because of their superhighway-wide paper trails. In this category I'd add Erwin Chemerinsky who Clinton briefly considered for the 9th Circuit but who Republicans warned would be DOA (and to be DOA for that crazy court is saying something!), but whose views are too well-known and too controversial for appointment.

Oh, and if Democrats truly don't understand the importance of judicial nominees, they will if a Republican wins next year. Some scenarios posited by readers have the Republican president getting as many as three picks. Needless to say that might restore a measure of judicial sanity!

Supreme Court: Limits Race in School Assignment Plans

Finally a decision on one of the most anticipated decisions of the session - whether race can play a significant role in distributing children in public schools, specifically in Louisville and Seattle. This may be the death throes of a forced desegregation movement that saw phenomena like Boston's forced busing. Details are still slim, I'll update later with more.

UPDATE: SCOTUSblog finally got some analyses and the like up: here, here, and here; the full opinion (all 185 pages of it) is here.

UPDATE 2: Washington Wire has a simple, easy round-up of the case.

Court Roundup

It's been an interesting day in the legal world, both at the nation's highest court and at lower levels.

Washington DC's "$67 Million Pants" lawsuit ended with victory for the accused owners of the dry cleaners. That these immigrants didn't get abused by our judicial system is heartening; what's still depressing is that though the judge forced the plaintiff (himself a judge) to reimburse the defendents' court fees, it's not clear yet whether they'll recover their tens of thousands of legal fees. This perfectly illustrates the kind of common sense reform the American legal system desperately needs.

The Supreme Court handed down its decision in Alaska's "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" (aka Morse v. Frederick) case, finding for the high school principle and limiting students' free speech. That said, the Court's decision (found here) restricts this limitation to the case at hand because of the illegal substances angle. The case produced some interesting bedfellows as the ACLU and religious freedom groups lined up behind the accused student, the former for obvious reasons, the latter fearing an infringement of students' expression of religion on campus.

The case that generated the most buzz, both in the blogosphere and the media at large, relates to the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (BCRA aka McCain-Feingold), specifically the law's provision banning issue ads in the last 60 days before an election. Speaking personally, this is one issue where I've moved right over the last few years; BCRA was an assault on free speech and as such I'm glad to see the Court rolling it back. Check out the chatter at Captain's Quarters,
Powerline, and several interesting pieces from SCOTUSblog here, here, and (oh well there was another but the link's being goofy). Whether BCRA can sustain another attack like this remains to be seen; I hope the answer is no.

Most of the chatterati still await the Court's decisions on a trio of school desegregation cases; nothing yet. For today, I think these cases are the big three (the first of course being from the realm of the absurd).

"Hate Crimes" Meets Theater of the Absurd

Though I don't think I've blogged on it, I consider the concept of "hate crimes" odious and almost Orwellian, punishing as it does not so much the action but the thought underlying it (this article from yesterday's ChiTrib also highlights the difficulties in charging blacks with hate crimes against whites - perhaps because there is no white Al Sharpton?)

Now it's once again gone from odious to absurd: a suit on appeal (unsurprisingly, from the crazy 9th Circuit) to the Supreme Court holds that "the words 'natural family,' 'marriage' and 'union of a man and a woman' can be punished as 'hate speech' in government workplaces."

Apparently this whole mess began when a gay/lesbian group of city employees in Oakland sent out an invitation to participate in "National Coming-Out Day;" when asked whether distributing such tripe was legitimate, the city manager responded (in his best ultra-PCese) that "'celebration of the gay/lesbian culture and movement' was part of the city's role to 'celebrate diversity.'" Since when do cities have to celebrate diversity?

A group of traditionally-valued employees which had formed in response and reached out via posted fliers to "people of faith" who opposed attempts to redefine marriage was then accused by a lesbian employee of making her feel "targeted" and "excluded." At this point, the courts issued a "ruling said the words 'natural family' and 'marriage' had 'anti-homosexual import.'" The two women accused of "targeting" and "excluding" this dyke (pardon - is that not PC?) complained that their first amendment rights were being compromised. Which is technically true, unless you may in any unintentional or imagined way insult minorities, gays, or women (white men, Southerners, and military personnel not included).

It's now up to the Supreme Court to decided whether - as the 9th Circuit ruled - an employer's administrative interests (in this case diversity) trumps the employees' free speech. I certainly don't consider that a compelling government interest (which must be shown to limit speech), and I doubt Roberts, Thomas, Scalia and Alito will either. The Court already found "hate speech" constitutional in Wisconsin v. Mitchell (1993) and though I'm not sure that's really the issue under consideration here, I hope that the Court takes this opportunity to overrule that precedent as well as throw out this latest bit of 9th Circuit BS. On the flip side of the "diversity" coin, I believe they previously found diversity to be a compelling interest in one of the affirmative action cases (Bakkae?) and thus have a certain degree of precedent (one that Ginsberg will no doubt cite in her dissent).

PC nonsense combined with judicial absurdity, topped with an infringement of our free speech: the Left finds a new way to repel me every day.

One final depressing side note: the then-city manager is now the DC School Board president, no doubt injecting such garbage into the District's curriculum, rather than working on things like, say, fixing the broken schools.

Another SCOTUS Confirmation?

White House is making noises (from ABC) about another Supreme Court nomination, raising questions about whether or not Stevens or Ginsberg may be retiring. I don't see Ginsberg retiring under a Republican president; Stevens also isn't likely but is 87 (?) and thus may not be around much longer regardless. If either does step down, their calculus may be that a retirement with a Democratic Senate is palatable. However (and assuming there are 60 votes for cloture), with Landrieu (LA), Pryor (AR), Johnson (SD) and Baucus (MT) up for reelection (as well as Lieberman), the Republicans may just have the necessary votes. On the other side of the equation, Sununu (NH), Snowe (ME) and Smith (OR) may all be Republicans looking to display their independence and moderation. But on some level, a Bush failure here would be beneficial: bringing Democratic intransigence into focus and rallying the base, as well as acting as a proving ground for Republican presidential candidates and opening Democrats running for reelection to criticism for their actions. Anyways, losing one of those two would make a better court regardless of replacement.

Vets and Free Speech

Today's Trib has an interesting article regarding veterans' right to protest in uniform. Personally I'm torn - they're no longer active duty soldiers so obviously they shouldn't be bound by conventional military rules, but on a less legal level, I feel these guys are disgracing the uniform they wear by consorting with anti-war activists. Not that that will stand up in court.

However, looking at precedent, in the past the Supreme Court has been rather accommodating to the military, as when they noted in Goldman v. Weinberger (475 US 503, 1986), that "[o]ur review of military regulations challenged on First Amendment grounds is far more deferential than constitutional review of similar laws or regulations designed for civilian society." Obviously the pressing question is whether or not veterans are equally bound.

Strange Bedfellows

Alaska's "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case from 2002 will be heard by the Supreme Court tomorrow. Best of all, some Christian groups are supporting the sign-bearing student fearing a curtailment of religious speech on campus. Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows.